


let me make something beautiful

by huphilpuffs



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Family Planning, M/M, No mpreg, discussions of Adoption, discussions of surrogacy, no mpred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 14:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16914291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huphilpuffs/pseuds/huphilpuffs
Summary: Technology arises that allows same-sex couples to have biological children. Dan and Phil consider.





	let me make something beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when my philosophy class makes me discuss the morality of human cloning and I get curious. Much thanks to TortiTabby and sasiml for beta'ing this for me.

It starts when news breaks that a gay couple in America had a baby. 

A baby that is biologically theirs. 

Dan watches it all happen on social media. They’re not the first. Scientists have spent ages working on this, perfecting it, making it more efficient. But high profile couples had stayed away from the technology for a while, and now it’s all over Dan’s Twitter feed with crying emojis and pictures and joyous celebration. 

There’s a bubble of something in Dan’s chest. The story is already number one in trending and he  _ knows  _ so much of that response is people being mad about disrupting nature and taking risks and the gay agenda. And that so much of it is people crying for something that’s suddenly,  _ finally  _ possible.

His thumb hovers over the main article for too long before he opens it, leaning over to nudge Phil’s shoulder with his own.

“Did you see this?”

Phil reads the article first. All wide eyes and a beautiful smile and the gleam of tears that come when he reaches the album of family photos people thought would never exist.

“That’s amazing,” he says. “You can– You can  _ tell.  _ The baby looks like them.”

Dan glances at the screen. He wants to say  _ it’s a newborn, Phil, it looks like a newborn  _ or  _ the only reason you can tell is because the article is all about it,  _ but his heart clenches and, goddammit, he  _ can  _ tell. Can see the spread of blonde hair on the baby’s head that matches one dad’s, and the slope of her nose that matches the other. 

“Isn’t it amazing?”

Dan swallows, dipping his head to press a soft kiss to Phil’s shoulder. “Yeah,” he whispers. “It’s amazing.”

\---

Dan’s brain has never been good at  _ not  _ overthinking things. 

He lies in bed that night, staring at swirls of darkness overhead, and thinks of photographs that shouldn’t have existed but do. Of couples out there with a baby to call their own who thought they would never had that. Of quotes from celebrities he doesn’t know anything about, talking about how grateful and amazed and  _ happy  _ they are.

His chest feels too tight. He rolls onto his side, stares at the shades of black there, instead.

Phil rolls with him, because his brain has never been good at going to sleep when Dan’s awake worrying.

Dan lets Phil drape an arm over his waist, draw him back so his back is pressed to Phil’s chest. 

“Whatcha thinking about?” asks Phil, voice low and gruff with sleep.

A few years ago, Dan may have said  _ nothing.  _ But tonight, he reaches down to take Phil’s hand in his. “Babies.”

“Because of the article?”

Dan closes his eyes. The images come again, but they’re not all of people he’s vaguely aware of. They’re of Phil holding a little baby with blue eyes and auburn hair and a dimple. Of Kath and Nigel crying over their grandchild. Of his own parents pointing all the different ways their child would look like each of them. 

“Because of a lot of things.”

Phil nods, presses a kiss to the back of Dan’s head. “Tell me if you need anything?”

Dan smiles. “Okay.”

\---

He lasts two weeks before it’s too much weighing on his chest. 

“You always wanted a baby, right?” he says. “Like,  _ your  _ baby?”

Phil glances up from his laptop. “I guess? Why?”

Dan shrugs, but he can feel his cheeks flushing, his fingers falling to play with the hem of his shirt. It’s stupid, he thinks. He doesn’t even want a biological child, isn’t sure he ever did, but his brain mutter reminders of nights spent holding Phil and talking about a future he used to imagine, knowing they could never have it.

Except they can now.

“Is this about the article?”

Dan doesn’t answer, watching as Phil closes the lid of his laptop and sets it aside, drifts across the sofa so their thighs are pressed together.

“Are you still thinking about it?”

“Yeah,” says Dan. “Can’t– You know my brain doesn’t shut up.”

“I know,” says Phil. “What isn’t your brain shutting up about?”

Dan shrugs again, because words are too heavy in his chest and speaking them feels like asking for something he doesn’t want, indulging an idea too distant and obscure and terrifying for him to put into words. But Phil knows him too well to let him wallow in his thoughts, and reaches over to press his palm to the bend of Dan’s knee.

“You wanna know what I think about it?” asks Phil.

Dan nods. 

“I– I think it’s cool.  _ Incredible, _ ” he says. “I think I can’t stop thinking about it, either, just in a different way.”

“In what way?”

Phil’s eyes drop. “Dan–”

It’s answer enough.

\---

A long time ago, they used to talk about the future as though it was purely hypothetical, as brimming with possibility as a dream. Some days it was about Dan finishing uni and Phil getting a steady job and settling into a normal life where they faded into the background. Others, it was about being successful YouTubers, in the voices of two people too young to know what would come next. 

And later, they would talk about it like distant plans they weren’t necessarily going to follow through with, but hung in the air like quiet possibilities. Conversations in their old flat about owning a house where every wall was windows and they managed to blend Dan’s monochrome aesthetic with Phil’s bright one. Ideas for a wedding with white suits and roses, a simple ring for Phil and a more extravagant one for Dan. 

And quiet contemplations of a distant future where they’d adopt or have a surrogate or  _ something,  _ where they would be parents who loved their child with everything in them.

But it’s not distant anymore.

They’re successful YouTubers, who own a house with giant windows and white walls and house plants all over, who have rings on both their left hands. 

Dan sits in the lounge. There’s pictures from both tours hanging above the mantel, and one of their wedding sitting on an end table. Outside, they have a garden where their dog plays and Dan reads and Phil tends to vegetable plants that have yet to produce anything. His ring gleams in the sunlight.

He closes his eyes, imagines a couple years from now. 

There’s a child, all glowy and hypothetical and  _ brilliant.  _ Dan just wishes he knew how to get there. 

 

“Should we talk about it?” asks Phil.

Dan shrugs. “Probably.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He doesn’t answer. Chester is lying on his lap, all fluff and warmth and comfort, and what Dan really wants is to draw Phil closer and cuddle with his husband and their dog and pretend that futures are simple. He runs a hand over Chester’s back instead, stares at the way golden fur splits between his fingers.

“It’s scary, isn’t it?”

Dan’s laugh tastes bitter on his tongue. “Isn’t it supposed to be?”

“I guess so,” says Phil.

He doesn’t sound like he thinks so. He sounds like Dan feels, like he wishes it were easy and they could just fuck and make a baby and not need to question a whole variety of options, none of which are straightforward and all of which feel abnormal.

“We’re actual adults now,” Dan hears himself say. “We could– Maybe we  _ should  _ do this soon.”

“Have a baby?”

Dan looks up. Chester nuzzles his head against Dan’s hip, pressing the tip of his nose to Phil’s thigh. “Or figure out how we would want to have one, at least?”

Phil nods, head staying dipped. He reaches forward, too, runs his fingers through the fur under Chester’s chin. Dan wonders if the dog can feel the weight of the conversation, their desperate need to anchor themselves to something simple. Dans fingers drift over Chester’s side, and he thinks about how, a while ago, having a dog was just another hypothetical idea for their future they hadn’t yet figured out.

“How do you want to have one?” asks Phil.

Dan swallows. “I don’t know,” he mumbles. “I think adoption sounds … good.”

Phil nods, slow and thoughtful. “It does sound good,” he says, “but I just– I know it’s dumb and society’s standards for families and all that but I can’t–”

Dan’s fingers coast over Chester’s neck, come to rest over the back of Phil’s hand.

“You want a biological child,” he says.

Phil doesn’t answer.

\---

Dan knows Phil was raised in a home with traditional ideas and a close family. He’s heard Kath talk about gender roles and Nigel talk about his sons, and knows none of it is malicious, but all of it has ingrained itself into Phil’s mind as unreachable ideals he wants but thinks he can’t have.

Phil’s told him about it, about how his parents have always been supportive but their ideas are still ingrained in his mind. How when he first realized he liked boys, imagining any future had been difficult because his entire framework for a good life was based on heterosexuality. 

Some things were harder to let go than others, Dan knows.

By the time they moved in together, Phil had managed to diminish the importance of marriage in his mind, would say things like  _ it’s just a piece of paper  _ and  _ people still use it to treat others like property.  _ When gay marriage was legalized, it hadn’t been this immensely important thing they felt the need to rush into.

Dan has a ring now. So does Phil. There’s a marriage certificate in their envelope of important paperwork and memories shared with friends and family, but there’s comfort in knowing their wedding was for  _ them  _ and not for any of society’s standards. 

But Phil feels the pressure, Dan thinks.

Except sometimes he closes his eyes and lets himself image Phil holding a baby with faintly ginger hair and the slope of Dan’s nose and wonders if it has anything to do with society at all.

\---

Another celebrity couple has a baby.

Another slew of stories crowds Dan’s timeline, paints it with happy pictures and warm promises and stories about new advancements and continuous learning and promises that everything is working out great.

Phil smiles when the news breaks, the sad kind that tinges his eyes with hope.

Dan can’t help it when he reaches over, curls a hand around Phil’s nape and leans in to press a kiss to his head. 

“We’ll look into it, okay?” he says.

Because Phil’s hope might be painted across his face, but Dan can feel his own bursting in his chest.

\---

“You know I’d love our child if we adopted, right?” Phil asks.

It’s nighttime and they haven’t really looked into anything yet, but it’s there like a promise weighing heavy between them. Dan reaches across the bed, takes Phil’s hand in his own and holds on tight.

“I know you would,” he says. “There’s no way you wouldn’t love our child. I know that.”

“Okay,” says Phil. “Because I know you think I want a biological child. But it’s not– I wouldn’t love an adopted baby any less. I don’t want you to–”

Dan rolls over, presses his chest to Phil’s side. “You are the most loving person I know,” he says, pressing the words to Phil’s cheek. “Stop catastrophizing. I know you’re going to love our child.”

Phil’s chest buckles with his exhale. “Okay,” he says. “You’re going to be the best dad.”

He doesn’t argue. His hand drifts over Phil’s stomach until he can slip his fingers beneath the fabric of Phil’s shirt. Phil shifts, drapes his arm over Dan’s shoulders, tugs him close. It’s been a while since they’ve cuddled like this, but Dan can hear the steady beat of Phil’s heart, the hitch in his breath before he speaks.

“Soon, right? However we do it, I want to do it soon.”

Dan grins, turns to press a kiss to Phil’s chest. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Soon.”

\---

They sit down and do research like proper adults.

It reminds Dan of when they first looked at flats in London, first started writing a book, first contemplated going on a world tour. His fingers are splayed over the keyboard and the heavy weight of anticipation and  _ oh my god this is going to change my entire life  _ settles on his heart.

“What should we look at first?” asks Dan.

Phil’s leg is bouncing. They’re sitting on the sofa, but he’s hunched over his knees, staring back at Dan with eyes wide and terrified.

“How about adoption?” Dan suggests, because Phil looks like words are a tangled mess in his mind. “It’s probably more straightforward, right?”

Phil nods. Dan googles it.

It is fairly straightforward, quite similar to what Dan would have expected. Full of adoption agencies and applications and training and waiting. Phil settles against the sofa halfway through the third article on subject, though his breathing remains quick and his movements stay jumpy. 

For a long time, Dan thought this is what they would do. Part of him still does. But he closes the last article on the subject and turns to find Phil all curled up, pressed into a ball.

Dan closes his laptop, sets it aside so he can reach over and rest his hand on the hunch of Phil’s back.

“You okay?” he asks. 

Phil nods. “It’s scary.”

“We don’t have to do this now,” says Dan. “We have time.”

But Phil shakes his head, flopping back and wedging Dan’s hand between his shoulders and the sofa. “I want to,” he says. “I just wish it was simpler.”

Dan wishes it were simpler, too.

\---

Phil makes a pros and cons list, because he’s pragmatic and likes to get his thoughts on paper instead of letting them ruminate in the darkest depths of his mind. He sits down at their too-big dining table and spreads a sheet of lined paper and makes a list as though choosing how to become parents requires the same level of thought as choosing snack food. 

Dan lets him, though. Because just like Phil knows he lets his thoughts linger, Dan knows Phil’s thoughts spiral into worst case scenarios until his expectation because his greatest nightmare. 

The sky’s gone dark and Chester is asleep in the living room, waiting to go to bed, and Dan is sitting in his low lit dining room, watching his husband stare at a blank piece of paper. 

“Give it to me,” he says, reaching over to snatch the list from between Phil’s hands, plucking the pen from between his fingers. “This isn’t our final decision, okay? It’s just thoughts.”

Phil nods. But he doesn’t say anything. His quiff is a little wayward atop his head and Dan thinks that they should probably wait until morning. He sets the pen down, reaches across the table to rest his hand over Phil’s.

“Just tell me, okay? Just me,” he says. “What’s on your mind?”

Phil swallows. “I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of adopting.”

Dan feels his shoulders tense, but he squeezes Phil’s hand and drags his chair forward so their knees knock together under the table. “Okay,” he says. “What scares you about adoption?”

Phil’s grip on his hand goes tight. “I know I said I’d love our child. And I  _ would _ . I know I would.”

“But?”

He looks up there, blue eyes cast in shadows and gleaming with tears. Dan thinks of the other night, holding Phil against him and promising understanding for something Phil doesn’t seem to grasp entirely. He wants to do it again, breathe promises that it’ll be okay against Phil’s head until all these ideas he holds onto too tightly fall away.

Dan smiles, the soft comforting kind Phil offers him on bad days.

“I’m scared I’m not good enough to do it right,” says Phil.

Dan nods. He doesn’t say a word, not until he’s dragged Phil to his feet, drawn him into a hug. 

“You’re the best person I know,” he says, because sometimes Phil knows and other times Phil needs to hear it. “Can you stop making up worst case scenarios now?”

Phil smiles against his shoulder. “I can try.”

“Okay,” says Dan. He pulls away, leans down to press a kiss to the top of Phil’s head. “Now it’s bedtime.”

In the lounge, Chester jumps at the word. He’s already bounding up the stairs by the time Dan drags Phil out of the dining room.

\---

“I’m scared too, you know.”

Dan says it when it’s morning and Phil no longer looks like he has the weight of the world on his chest. There’s empty cereal bowls on the coffee table and a boring movie on TV and Chester is chewing a ball in the corner of the room. Phil looks up at him.

“Of what?”

“Of having a baby,” says Dan. “ _ My  _ baby, with my genes.”

Phil’s brows furrow. “You’re genes are great.”

Dan’s responding laugh is heavy and bitter. “You only say that because you think I’m pretty,” he says.

“Is that a problem?”

He’s grinning, and maybe it’s not time for a serious conversation. Maybe being an adult doesn’t have to mean talking everything out all the time. Dan could giggle and say no, lean in to press a quick kiss to Phil’s lips, taste the sugary sweetness of cereal on his tongue.

They could make out in the kitchen like they did when they were young and had a breakfast bar in a small flat in Manchester.

Dan shrugs, instead. “Not really,” he says, “but genes are more than just looks.”

Phil freezes, spoon halfway to his mouth. When he speaks, half its contents spill back into the bowl. “You mean your depression?”

Dan’s throat feels too tight to speak, so he hums.

“Oh,” says Phil.

The corner of Dan’s mouth quirks up into a bittersweet smile.

\---

“You never mentioned that before.”

They’re in the garden when Phil says it, under the afternoon sun and the shade of their patio. Chester is running back and forth across the lawn. Dan has a new book with pristine pages he almost doesn’t want to risk rumpling with his fingertips. Phil has dirt on the knees of his jeans.

“The depression thing?” says Dan, as though they could be talking about anything else.

Phil nods. He throws a ball for Chester before stepping onto the porch, wiping some sweat from his brow. On a normal day, Dan might set his book down, grin, and kiss Phil before telling him he needs a shower.

This is a normal day, he thinks.

It doesn’t feel like one.

“I never really had a reason to,” he says. “When we were talking in the abstract, it didn’t really matter. I could just pretend I had good genes or that we would just use yours.”

His gaze dropped. When he looks back up, Phil’s smiling, looking a little too sad. Dan’s chest goes tight.

He thinks of the conversations they used to have, quiet and dreamy and hopeful. It was never supposed to be sad, when they eventually became reality.

“We’re not talking in the abstract anymore, right?”

Phil steps forward, drops onto the edge of the lounge chair. They’re a little too broad to share it comfortably, but Dan still shifts to the side, pressing himself against the armrest and letting Phil fall into the empty space, they’re hips pressing too tightly together.

He needs it, right now. They both do.

“We could be,” says Phil. “We don’t need to do it soon, if you’re not ready.”

Dan reaches for his leg, squeezing, smearing soil across his palm. “But you’re ready.”

“We both need to be ready,” says Phil. He’s smiling, the bittersweet kind that makes guilt churn in the bottom of Dan’s stomach. “If we’re going to have a kid, we both need to be ready.”

“I know,” whispers Dan. “I am ready to have a kid.”

He leans in. The angle is awkward, the space too tight, but he manages to press a kiss to the round of Phil’s shoulder, clenching too tightly at the bony juts of his knee.

“I just don’t know if I’m ready to have  _ my  _ kid.”

\---

They do more research, not on adoption this time.

The process is complicated, most of the information incomplete. Dan’s fairly certain Buzzfeed’s article about how adorable the new miracle babies are isn’t the most accurate source to rely on when family planning. Part of him is too scared to click on all the websites that sound more legitimate.

He doesn’t understand it entirely.

There’s something about cloning cells, about manipulating their DNA so they act like egg cells instead of sperm.

Science has never been Dan’s strong suit. 

He’s not sure it matters. It’s not like  _ he’s  _ the one making an embryo out of just sperm.

Phil looks up with wide eyes after they read one of the articles. It’s from a scientific journal, serious and dense and full of terminology they don’t understand, trying to assess if the risk of health issues in children increases.

“Did you understand any of that?” says Dan.

Phil laughs. He sounds almost delirious. His tongue sticks out between his teeth.

“Not at all.”

\---

They book an appointment with their doctor. 

A family doctor, some people call it. Dan’s always known that, but it feels more weighted as he holds the phone to his ear.

“And what will this appointment be about?” says the woman on the other end of the line.

Phil’s sitting at the dining room table, hunched over to pet Chester, one leg bouncing like he’s the one on the phone. Dan knows he’d be pacing if he was, fidgeting, jittering. Part of him is glad he can offer this, some stability, when it feels like he’s the one holding them back with his insecurities.

“Family planning,” he tells her. 

“Okay,” she says, “that’ll be June 28th at 3:30pm.”

He smiles, offering Phil a thumbs up, and says: “Sounds good, thank you.”

\---

Their doctor is a kind woman who’s seen them through antidepressants, anxiety, laryngitis and migraines. She sits across from them in her office, swiveling in her chair, with both their charts laid out across her desk.

“We heard about some, uh, new technology,” says Dan, because it feels weird to say  _ we’ve heard they can make babies out of just spunk.  _

She smiles. Thin lines crinkle at the corners of her eyes. “I imagined you would,” she says. “I take it you guys are considering having a biological child?”

“Considering, yeah,” says Phil.

The doctor nods. “I’ll have to refer you to a specialist for that,” she says. “It’s a new field. I admittedly don’t know all that much about how it works.”

The words  _ new field  _ settle heavily in Dan’s chest.

He feels like it should make things scarier than they feel.

\---

“What would happen if we did it?”

They’re lying in bed, staring up at the same ceiling. Dan wonders if the doctor’s words are echoing in Phil’s head, too, if he feels the anxiety, the pressure of knowing there will be doctors and decisions and a whole world of possibilities laid out before them.

“We’ll have a baby,” says Dan.

“Yeah.”

Phil rolls over, tucking himself onto his side, facing Dan. He can feel the trace of Phil’s gaze across the slope of his nose, the round of his cheeks, like when they were young and dumb and lying on checkered blue sheets. Dan remembers the fluttering in his stomach, not knowing what Phil was thinking, not knowing what he felt.

This feels stupidly similar. He’d laugh at it, if things didn’t feel so heavy.

Phil’s fingers drift along his chest. “Talk about it like we used to,” he whispers. “Like before it was serious. What do you think it’d be like?”

Dan’s eyes drift closed. The more they talk about it, the more he can picture it.

“They’d have your eyes,” he says, even though he knows the laws of genetics probably say otherwise. “And maybe a hint of ginger in their hair. We both carry that gene, right?”

Phil hums. He clutches at Dan’s t-shirt.

Dan reaches over. His fingers drift across Phil’s forehead, a little clumsy, shaking. He combs them through Phil’s quiff, cradles the back of his head, pulls him closer.

“Maybe they’ll have your natural hair colour,” he says, “and I won’t even recognize it.”

Phil laughs, soft, quiet. He nudges closer, until his head is resting on Dan’s shoulder, his heartbeat thudding against Dan’s side. 

“They’ll have your dimples, then,” he says.

Dan smiles. “I don’t know. Mark Zuckerberg said I probably didn’t have dimples, I’m probably not very likely to pass them on, huh?”

Phil pouts. Dan feels it against the side of his neck. 

“I want them to have your dimples, though.” He reaches out, pokes Dan in the cheek, giggling. He sounds almost delirious. Maybe they always have been, during conversations like this. “They’re cute.”

He snags Phil’s hand, brings it to his mouth, dusting a kiss to his knuckles. His arm, wedged awkwarding between his side and Phil’s chest, comes up to wrap around Phil’s shoulders, to hold him close. 

“Our kid will be cute,” says Dan.

He’s half asleep, still holding his husband, when he realizes they’re not speaking in vague hypotheticals.

Not anymore.

\---

The appointment with the specialist is booked for a Monday.

Dan sets down his phone and the pen he’d been scribbling information with. The writing is barely legible, but he hands it to Phil, knowing he’ll understand anyway.

August 14th. He wishes they had a wall calendar to write it down on, visualize it. 

He writes it down in his phone again, watches Phil do the same, wondering how he’s supposed to label something like this, so potentially life-altering and yet so simple.

_ Appointment with Dr. Constantine,  _ is what he types, but it feels too detached, too much like when he had therapy or when Phil had headaches.

None of this feels like that did.

Dan feels almost silly when he edits the event, adding a little baby emoji at the end of it.

Phil glances over and smiles, though, so he figures it’s okay.

\---

“Should we even be considering it?”

Dan looks up from his laptop, brows furrowed. “Huh?”

“Having a baby,” says Phil. “Like, you know, like this. Should we?”

“Oh,” says Dan.

It’s been a while since they talked about it. The date on his phone is ticking closer to an appointment they haven’t discussed much, probably not enough. He tries not to wonder too much about what brought this on, not with Phil staring aimlessly at the corner of the lounge, eyes a little too wide.

Dan’s well acquainted with that feeling.

“Why shouldn’t we consider it?”

Phil shrugs, the tense kind that makes it obvious he has an answer. “I don’t know, I guess because the alternative is adopting?” He looks over. His fingers, Dan realizes, are twisted harshly in the fabric of his pyjamas. “We could give a family to a kid who needs one, right? And a good life. And why should genetics be more important than that?”

Dan sucks in a breath. He sets his laptop aside, shifting a little closer on the sofa. There’s a throw pillow with leaves printed on it wedged between them until Phil reaches for it, clinging it tightly to his chest.

“It’s not more important,” he says. “We’re taking it all into account, right?”

Phil nods, jerky and hesitant, so Dan reaches out to rest a hand on his knee, squeezing a little too tightly.

“Why should we need to think about it more than other people, anyway?” he says. “Straight people don’t sit around wondering if them not using condoms is immoral. I mean, not for that reason at least.”

He swallows. “Yeah.”

But Phil’s still clinging to the pillow, still staring with eyes too wide, and Dan’s whole body deflates. He rests his arm over Phil’s shoulders instead, pulls him in a little closer so Dan can steady his breathing with a weight on his chest.

“We’ll figure it out, okay?” he says. “We’ll think about all of it. But us wanting a baby that’s, like,  _ ours _ isn’t bad, not any worse than it was for your parents to want you and Martyn, right?”

Phil nods. “Right.”

Dan’s not entirely sure he believes it.

He sighs, and thinks too much about how this is the first time he realized Phil doesn’t quite know what he wants, either.

\---

Dr. Constantine is an older man with wrinkles framing his smile.

Dan feels out of place sitting in his office, where there’s pictures of pregnant women and diagrams of wombs and pamphlets about newborns. He feels like he shouldn’t be wearing black skinny jeans or a jumper that’s a little too big over his shoulders. He doesn’t feel like someone who should be family planning.

Not outside his home, sitting in front of an older man, at least.

The doctor shakes both their hands before settling on his office chair.

“I assume I don’t need to ask why you guys are here,” he says. “My obstetrics practice has become almost exclusively about assisting same-sex couples have children since the news emerged, not that I mind, of course.”

Phil just nods. 

Dan forces a laugh. “I’d imagine quite a few people are considering it?”

“Definitely,” says Dr. Constantine. “That’s what happens when you offer people an option they’ve always wanted, but thought impossible.” His smile softens. “I certainly would have liked the option when I was younger.”

Dan’s whole body deflates, then. He feels the tension leave Phil, turning to see his smile go from anxious to genuine.

“Yeah,” he says. “We haven’t quite decided what we want to do yet, but having the option is … amazing.”

Dan knocks their knees together, nodding.

“Understandable,” says the doctor. “If you don’t mind my asking, had you guys considered surrogacy before this technology emerged? I’d just like to gauge your comfort with the idea.”

Phil presses his foot against Dan’s. He doesn’t usually talk much at their joint appointments, says he never knows how to explain things better than Dan does.

Today, he nods. “We had, yeah,” he says. “I had some, uh, reservations about the idea of having a child that was biologically only one of ours, though.”

Dan’s chest goes tight.

Dr. Constantine nods. “Well, that we can certainly address,” he says. “Allow me to go over the process we’d follow?”

\---

“You never mentioned that before.”

They’re home when Dan says it, with pamphlets in hand and an information package laid out across the dining room table, Dr. Constantine’s words ringing in his mind. Phil’s still feel heavier, on his shoulders, in his chest, when he looks up and catches the hopeful gleam in blue eyes.

“Which part?” says Phil.

“The being nervous about having a baby that was only yours thing,” says Dan, because they both know it would have been Phil’s baby, had they had to choose.

“Oh.” He shrugs, smoothing out one of the pamphlets across the table. “I guess it was never really that important, when we were talking about everything as a hypothetical.”

Dan swallows. He folds the corner of the paper he’s holding, a form explaining the risks of limited science alongside everything all studies have shown so far. He’ll read it sometime, probably in the middle of the night with his laptop as a light source and Google to clarify everything he doesn’t understand.

For now, he fidgets.

“I guess,” he says. “You could have, though.”

Phil looks up, offering a half-smile that cuts any accusation from his voice. “You didn’t mention your depression apprehension.”

Dan feels himself smile, too, even as something aches in his chest. “Touche.”

Papers crinkle. Phil’s chair scrapes against the floor when he pushes back, shifts onto the one next to Dan so their elbows brush together as they pretend to read the same pages of incomprehensible text.

“I just thought it might be weird,” he says. He doesn’t look up. Dan’s almost glad he doesn’t. “Growing up, you know, a kid was like … your DNA mixed with the person you love and, like, it never would have been that with an egg donor. If we adopted a baby, it would have been the same to both of us, but–”

His teeth knock together as his mouth falls closed, shrugging one shoulder like Dan knows what else he could say.

He does know. 

“I would have loved our baby, if it had been just, you know,  _ yours, _ ” he says.

“I know,” says Phil. The back of their hands brush together between pamphlets. “I would have, too. I just felt weird about the idea of, I don’t know, making a baby with someone who wasn’t you.”

Part of Dan wants to laugh, to remind Phil that making a baby that way would have involved more interaction between him and a plastic cup than him and anyone who isn’t Dan. 

The other part of him has spent weeks imagining a baby who’s both of theirs, and no one else’s.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about it anymore,” he says, throat tight, chest aching.

Phil looks up. “I won’t?”

Dan motions to the table, littered in information neither of them can read, but can understand well enough to know what comes next. 

“Do you really think that if we have a surrogate, it’s not going to be  _ our  _ baby?”

Phil swallows, glancing down at the pamphlet about choosing a surrogate he’s holding. “What about your gene thing?”

“We’ll figure it out,” says Dan. “If it’s too big of a problem, maybe we’ll adopt.”

He reaches out, draws the pamphlet from between Phil’s fingers and tosses it aside. Phil’s hands are shaking. Dan presses his own between them, clinging to one Phil’s palms until Phil looks up and matches his smile.

“I don’t want you to have a baby with someone else,” he says. “Not now that you can have one with me.”

\---

They do more research on adoption.

It seems fair, after having spent hours hunched over bundles of paperwork Dr. Constantine had given them. Dan props himself up against his pillows, laptop on his thighs, Phil tucked into his side, and types in the most generic search he can think of.

They start at the basics, the process, adoption agencies in London. 

Phil clings to his wrist as they read testimonies from parents who adopted, of lives changed and children’s progress and joy and pain that has Dan’s hands shaking where they hover over the keyboard. There’s a story about a couple who adopted a child who was abused, about therapy and attachment and late nights worrying.

About nightmares and first hugs and whispers of “dad” where no one else could hear.

Dan almost doesn’t type the next search. He doesn’t want to know. 

They need to know.

_ Life for kids waiting to be adopted _ , he writes.

It’s clumsy, the results messy and vague, but it’s enough to have him clicking on a few links about what foster care is like in the UK, about how kids with certain conditions suffer more, about abuse and neglect and children who come out of the system traumatized.

Phil’s crying, pressing his face into the crook of Dan’s shoulder. He’s still gripping Dan’s wrist so tightly his fingertips start to go cold.

“It’s terrible,” he says. 

Dan nods. There’s a lump in his throat, the kind he can’t speak around.

“ _ I  _ feel terrible.”

Dan doesn’t need to ask why. He knows why.

He feels it, too.

\---

“Do you think we spent too much time dreaming?”

He mumbles it against Phil’s shoulder, pressed against his back in the darkness of their bedroom. His phone, he knows, if he were to pick it up, would tell him hours had passed since he set his laptop aside, settled under the duvet with the guilty beat of his heart aching in his chest.

Phil lets out a breath, heavy and loud. His shoulders are tense.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

Dan knows he knows. 

They’ve both been lying here so long the light filtering through their blinds has shifted, faded to black. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “Fantasizing about a life, a baby, so much we–” he swallows against the threatening crack in his voice “–forgot about the impact our choice could have.”

Phil sighs. He sounds so sad that Dan almost wishes he hadn’t searched the last query, hadn’t bothered to get all the information, even though they needed it.

“I don’t know,” mumbles Phil.

He tucks his face into the crook of his elbow. Dan tucks his into the dip of Phil’s shoulder and tries to ignore the questions swirling in his head.

\---

They sip at coffee the next morning.

There’s a pounding between Dan’s temples and dark circles around Phil’s eyes. His whole body looks heavy, hunched over the breakfast bar, hands never moving from where they’re clasped around his mug.

“Maybe we should talk to someone,” says Dan.

His coffee’s bitter. He can’t be bothered to add more sugar.

Phil looks up, wincing. “Like a therapist?”

“No,” says Dan. “Like, I don’t know, people who’ve had kids before. Like your parents.”

“You’re ready to tell my parents we’re thinking about having a baby?”

He’s smiling, finally, as he takes another sip of his drink. For the first time since last night, something warm rushes through Dan’s chest.

“Yeah.”

“Kath won’t let you out of this now. You know that, right?” says Phil.

Dan smiles, nudging their knees together under the countertop. “I’m good with that if you are,” he says.

He watches Phil take a sip of his coffee, eyes gone soft, lips still quirked up, like this means the world to him. And maybe it does. Dan remembers his excitement when they’d told their loved ones they were together, when they told Dan’s parents they were moving in together, when he realized their audience were happy to accept whatever pieces of their relationship they were willing to share.

It makes it more concrete, he thinks. 

“I’ll ask them if we can visit later,” says Phil.

He presses his leg closer to Dan’s, and takes another drink.

\---

Kath and Nigel’s house is always warm in a way theirs isn’t. 

There’s pictures of Phil and Martyn at every age hanging on walls, littering shelves. Dan and Phil’s wedding picture sits on one of them, next to an older one of the Lesters, and a picture of Martyn and Cornelia on vacation. There’s a knit blanket draped across the sofa behind him and a cup of tea between his hands.

Part of him wishes they were back in Manchester, where he could look around and think about how that was where Phil grew up.

No one grew up here, but it’s where their kids will come to get spoiled with cookies and gifts, to go on hikes with their grandparents and enjoy parts of the world London can’t offer.

“We had something to ask you, actually,” says Phil.

Kath’s sitting in a rocking chair, smiling. Nigel’s staring at them over the bridge of his glasses.

“Of course,” says Kath. “You know you can always ask us anything.”

Phil nods, swallows. He’d asked to lead this conversation, sitting on the plane, tucked together with too little room and matching glasses of soda. Dan takes a sip of his tea to resist the urge to fill the silence.

“Have you guys heard of, uh, the new technology that allows gay couples to have kids?”

Kath laughs. “We had, yes.”

“I had to stop her from asking you boys about it, sooner,” says Nigel. “We figured that if you were considering it, you would let us know.”

“Well,” says Phil, “we’re considering it.”

Kath’s whole face lights up. Dan knows she’s always wanted grandkids. He’s heard about it over visits for years now, since their lives stopped being such a rush of young impulsivity.

“That’s wonderful,” she says.

Nigel nods his agreement, a gentle smile on his face.

It has Dan sinking deeper into the cushions, smiling as he takes a sip of his drink. Next to him, Phil’s still tense, staring down at his hands, resting on his lap. Dan reaches out to take one of them in his, squeeze gently, to feel the slight quivering of Phil’s fingers when he looks back up at his parents.

“We just, uh, wanted you guys’ advice on something,” he says.

“Anything,” says Kath.

Phil nods, swallowing. “Well, we were considering adoption, as another way to start our family, you know? But by now, I think Dan and I both, uh, want to go this route.”

He falls quiet. Dan squeezes his hand.

“And?” prompts Nigel.

“Well, we did some research on adoption, and the– the kids waiting for families,” says Phil. His eyes have gone wide, gleaming with the beginnings of tears. He holds Dan’s hand tight. “And I’m– we’re just worried it’s bad of us to have kids like that when we could help someone else.”

Dan untangles their fingers to rest a comforting hand on Phil’s knee again, ignoring the twinge of hurt in his own chest.

Kath stands up, all soft eyes and reaching hands, combing her fingers through the hair at the back of Phil’s head, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Oh, son,” she says, so warm and maternal it makes Dan’s heart melt. “You’re not a bad person, not at all.”

She drops a kiss to the top of Phil’s head before looking up to stare at Dan as she speak.

“Your father and I made a conscious choice to have you and Martyn, right? We could have chosen to adopt instead, but we didn’t. We wanted  _ our  _ baby,” she says. “Does that make us bad people?”

Phil shakes his head.

“I know this is different for you boys,” she says, barely a whisper, “but don’t ever think you’re bad people for wanting what so many others take for granted.”

She squeezes his shoulder. There are tears damp on Phil’s cheeks now, more stinging behind Dan’s eyes. He knows these people are a big part of why Phil wants a family, a baby of their own. Dan looks away to ease some of the ache between his ribs, to where Nigel has leaned forward in his chair.

“You too, son,” he says to Dan.

Kath reaches around Phil to squeeze his shoulder, too.

\---

“What are you thinking about?” Dan asks that night.

They’re in the guest room at Phil’s parents, tucked under an unfamiliar duvet, lying on a mattress unadjusted to their bones. Phil’s staring up at the ceiling, a soft smile on his face, lit up by the lamp Dan can’t bring himself to turn off. There’s a rush in his chest that he knows will keep him awake, even if he did.

He reaches over, nudges Phil’s hand with his own.

“Huh?” he says. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Phil hums, rolling his head against the pillow to smile at Dan. “Imagining what our baby might look like,” he says. “Is that okay?”

Dan takes his hand, smiling back. “Of course it’s okay. What do they look like this time?”

And Phil tells him.

\---

“So, we made a pretty big life decision.”

Dan’s mum looks up from her food, his dad raising a brow as he swallows his mouthful. His nana smiles at them both.

“Is that why you guys are here?” she says, her smile easing some of the anxiety that would have swirled in the pit of Dan’s stomach a few years ago. 

“Mm, sorta,” he says, sticking the tip of his tongue out so she knows he’s joking. Phil bumps their knees together under the dining table, chuckling under his breath.

His mum rolls her eyes. “Okay, dear son, what’s this big news of yours?”

“We’re gonna try to have a baby.”

Her eyes go wide. His dad’s do, too. His nana’s smile softens into something almost knowing, that has Dan’s chest going warm.

Under the table, Phil reaches over and squeezes his knee.

“Big news,” says his mum, “that’s for sure.”

“Well, congratulations,” says his dad.

His nana reaches over and rests her hand over Dan’s. “You boys will be lovely fathers,” she says. 

Dan feels his cheeks go pink, and he dips his head to hide his smile.

\---

There’s other conversations.

Marianne talks to them about how they’re going to handle it on their channels, on every other part of the internet they occupy. She calls their names as they’re leaving her office, and stands to give them both a hug before they can leave, mumbling a congratulations where her face is pressed between their shoulders.

Cornelia calls them crazy, sipping at a glass of wine and smiling in a way that says all the words everyone else has voiced. Martyn nudges Phil’s shoulder, joking about how nobody thought he’d be the first to become a dad, and ignoring Cornelia’s reminder that Phil will be the  _ only  _ Lester to have kids.

She smiles at Dan, though, and says: “You guys are gonna be great dads.”

Adrian offers his congratulations, too, over a facetime call full of smiles and anecdotes.

And there’s one on a Sunday night, bleeding into Monday morning, in the quiet of their bedroom, holding each other close and whispering into the silence.

“You’re gonna call to book the appointment tomorrow, right?” says Phil.

Dan hums. 

Phil holds him tighter. “We’re really doing this, then?”

“Having second thoughts?”

He presses his face into the crook of Dan’s neck, dusting a kiss to the skin there, and smiles. “No,” says Phil. “Never. I just never thought we’d be able to do this.”

Dan smiles. He reaches back to thread his fingers through Phil’s hair, to hold him close.

“Well, we’re going to,” he says.

The words make his whole body go warm.

\---

Phil holds his hand when he makes the call.

They’re sitting on the sofa where they read about the first couple having the first baby, hands tucked between the cushions, smiling at each other as a woman speaks in Dan’s ear.

“And what will this appointment be about?” she says.

He smiles. “My husband and I decided we’d like to go through with the, uh, procedure,” he says.

There’s the clicking of a keyboard over the phone. “Congratulations,” says the woman; Dan can hear her smiling. “That’ll be October 10th at 2:30, okay?”

He nods for Phil and says: “Sounds perfect,” for the receptionist.

She hangs up the call.

Dan drops his phone onto the cushion between them, and reaches over to hold Phil close.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on tumblr [@huphilpuffs](huphilpuffs.tumblr.com).


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